The pandemic changed the way we all behaved as consumers. As a result of being asked to stay at home for a period of time during the pandemic, the choice of entertainment became limited. One avenue of entertainment that remained open was online gaming but has online gaming remained strong since the pandemic boom?
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Online Gaming During the Pandemic
If we look at the statistics of online gaming between February and April of 2020, there was a surge in the number of people playing. Figures up to June 2020 show the amount of time people spent gaming increased by double digits across the world. The biggest increase was witnessed in the Latin America region and gamers increased their time playing video games by over 50%. There was a notable increase in the spending on online gaming downloads, including in-game content. Paid downloads increased by 21% and in-game downloads increased by 12% in the spring of 2020. Online gambling increased significantly during lockdown and regular online gamblers were six times more likely to gamble than before the pandemic. Regular gamblers who could not bet on sport switched to online casinos. This was great news for online casinos such as Razed, who offer betting on Esports and casino games.
What is Happening Since the Pandemic?
One of the many benefits of online gaming during the pandemic was the mental stimulation it provided people, especially those who lived alone. Over 15% of European based gamers in a survey believed that spending time playing online multiplayer games helped with their mental health during the pandemic. Many of those new to playing online games during the pandemic have remained and continue to play online games today. There is no doubt the pandemic was a reason many people started playing online games for the first time in 2020 and the growth has since slowed down.
In 2023, the online gaming market generated over 26 billion US dollars in revenue and that is a 9.8% increase on the previous year. There are currently more than 1.1 billion online gamers at the time of writing and that is predicted to increase further during 2024 and beyond. In fact, the predicted online gaming market revenue in 2027 is 32 billion US dollars.
However, there was a drop in the overall video game market revenue between 2021 and 2022. The statistics show the revenue dropped from 369 billion US dollars to 361 billion US dollars. Come the end of 2023, that number had gone back up and the overall video game market revenue stood at 406 billion US dollars, which is more than both 2020 and 2021.
So, while there has been some downward fluctuation following the pandemic in 2020, the number of people playing online video games continues to rise. There was always going to be a dip in the number of people playing online games when things got back to normal. The size of the increase in 2020 and 2021 was never expected to continue but online gaming has remained strong since the pandemic.